The present invention relates to a headlight apparatus for motorcycles and, more particularly, to a headlight apparatus that deflects the optical axis of the headlight in accordance with the turning radius of a vehicle when the vehicle rounds a curve or turns a corner, or the like.
A conventional headlight deflection control apparatus for motorcycles is known in the prior art as disclosed in, for example, Laid-Open Japanese Patent No. Sho. 62-96148. This prior art, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference, is designed to compute a turning radius from the vehicle speed and an inclination angle of the vehicle body, to compute an adjusted angle of optical axis of the headlight from the turning radius, and to turn the headlight by this adjusted angle of optical axis to the direction to which the vehicle body is going to turn, thereby improving light distribution to the turning path of the vehicle.
Generally, when rounding a corner, a motorcycle rider has a tendency to view the apex of the corner when he has come to the entrance of the corner, the exit of the corner when at a midway location therein, and the traffic condition ahead as in the forward straightaway when at the exit of the corner. However, the prior art described above has the problem that the headlight is only rotated by the aforesaid angle of the optical axis to the direction of turn of the vehicle body and, accordingly, light distribution to the areas within the rider's view at the entrance, midway and exit of the corner cannot be obtained.
The present invention, accordingly, has as a general objective to solve the above-mentioned problems of the prior art. It further seeks to provide a headlight control apparatus for motorcycles which has good light distribution characteristics in the direction of turning when the vehicle rounds a corner, and enables light distribution to the region of the rider's visual confirmation at each of the entrance, midway and exit positions of the corner.